1918 In Aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1918:

Events

*The Imperial Japanese Navy establishes its first lighter-than-air aviation unit.
* The naval aviation branch of the Chilean Armys air corps receives its first aircraft.
* The Eberhart Steel Products Company is founded in Buffalo, New York. It specializes in manufacturing airplane parts and aeronautical equipment and will begin to produce airplanes in 1920.
* Kawasaki Heavy Industries Company Ltd. organizes an aircraft division.
* Spring 1918 – Three Imperial Japanese Navy Farman-type seaplanes fly nonstop from Yokosuka to Sakai, Japan, stretching the navys aviation distance capabilities. The cities are apart.
* The French Armys ''Service Aeronautique'' employs four Breguet 14S air ambulances for casualty evacuation along the Aisne Front. Each aircraft can accommodate two stretcher cases.

January

* Gunner-observer Captain John H. Hedley is thrown from the cockpit of his Bristol F2B Fighter without a parachute during a dogfight when his pilot, Captain Reginald "Jimmy" Makepeace, puts the plane into a steep dive. After he falls several hundred feet, Hedley and the aircraft come back together and he manages to grab the fighters after fuselage and crawl back into his cockpit unharmed.
* The British Army convenes an inquiry to look into the failure of the British offensive in the Battle of Cambrai in November–December 1917. The inquiry finds that the German use of massed aircraft for close air support of German ground troops subjected British ground troops to so much machine-gun fire that they felt helpless and became demoralized, allowing a successful German counterattack.
* January 3 – With its owner, Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, concerned about declining support for the war effort by the British public and believing that news about the successes of living British pilots by name would create popular heroes and improve public morale, the British newspaper the ''Daily Mail'' publishes an editorial strongly criticizing the British Army's policy of not disclosing the names of successful Royal Flying Corps pilots unless they are killed, a policy instituted because of a belief by the British Army's leadership that such publicity would harm the ''esprit de corps'' of their fellow aviators. Other British newspapers quickly take up the cause, prompting the British Army to begin identifying pilots by name. France and Germany had identified their pilots to the press since early in World War I.
* January 5 – A rapid series of explosions and quickly spreading fires at the Imperial German Navy airship base at Tondern destroys four hangars and five airships in five minutes, killing four civilian workers and 10 naval personnel and injuring 134 naval personnel.
* January 7 – After the British Army drops its policy of not disclosing the names of successful Royal Flying Corps pilots unless they are killed, the ''Daily Mail'' publishes "Our Wonderful Airmen – Their Names At Last," the first article in the British press identifying living RFC pilots by name. The article discusses the exploits of Captains Philip Fuller and James McCudden.
* January 9 – In a dogfight over Moorslede, Belgium with three RFC aircraft including a No. 21 Squadron R.E.8 and two No. 60 Squadron S.E.5as, Max Ritter von Müller's Albatros D.Va is set on fire and he jumps to his death. Von Müllers 36 victories make him the highest-scoring Bavarian ace of World War I.Franks, 1998, p. 63.
* January 12 – A decree issued by the Council of Peoples Commissars of the Republic puts all Russian aircraft manufacturing companies under state control.
* January 28–29 (overnight) – The first German bombing raid against the United Kingdom of the new year is carried out by 13 Gotha ''Grossflugzeug'' and two ''Riesenflugzeug'' bombers. Six Gothas turn back due to poor visibility, but the other bombers attack targets in England, resulting in the deaths of 67 people and injuries to 166, including 14 killed and 14 injured in stampedes when "maroons" warning rockets are fired to warn of an imminent attack. Another 11 are injured by shrapnel from British antiaircraft shells. Most of the casualties are from a single bomb that hits Odhams Press in Long Acre, London, where people are sheltering. British aircraft fly over a hundred defensive sorties, and two Sopwith Camels of the Royal Flying Corps's No. 40 Squadron shoot down a Gotha, the first victory over a heavier-than-air bomber over the United Kingdom for British night fighters. Both pilots, Second Lieutenants Charles C. Banks and George Hackwill will receive the Distinguished Flying Cross.
* January 29–30 (overnight) – For the first time, German ''Riesenflugzeug'' bombers attack the United Kingdom without Gotha bombers accompanying them; the four bombers are from ''Riesenflugzeug Abteilung'' ("Giant Airplane Detachment") 501 (Rfa 501). One bomber turns back. The other three bomb England, inflicting only light damage and casualties. British aircraft fly 80 defensive sorties; five of them bring one of the German bombers under attack but succeed only in disabling one of its engines, and it returns safely to base.Guttman, Robert, "German Giant," ''Aviation History'', September 2014, pp. 14, 15. Unfamiliar with the great size of the bombers, many of the British pilots underestimate their size and fire at them from too great a range.
* January 30 – Second Lieutenant Carl Mather is killed in an aircraft collision at Ellington Field, Texas. The future Mather Air Force Base, later Sacramento Mather Airport, at Rancho Cordova, California, will be named for him.

February

* February 2 – The Imperial German Army's air service, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', forms its second and third ''Jagdgeschwader'' (fighter wings), bringing together four ''Jagdstaffeln'' (fighter squadrons) – ''Jagstaffeln'' ("''Jastas''") 12, 13, 15, and 19 – to form ''Jagdgeschwader'' II, with Adolf Ritter von Tutschek as its first commanding officer, and four other ''Jagdstaffeln'' – ''Jasta'' 2 "Boelcke" and ''Jastas'' 26, 27, and 36 – to form ''Jagdgeschwader'' III, with Bruno Loerzer as its first commanding officer.
* February 5 – Second Lieutenant Stephen W. Thompson achieves the first aerial victory by the U.S. military.
* February 8 – The United States replaces the () national insignia for its military aircraft adopted in 1917 with a roundel with an outer red ring, then a blue ring, and a white center . The roundel will remain in use until the United States reverts to its former markings in August 1919.
* February 16–17 (overnight) – Four ''Riesenflugzeug'' bombers of the German Luftstreitkräfte's ''Riesenflugzeug Abteilung'' ("Giant Airplane Detachment") 501 (Rfa 501) raid England. One of them carries a single bomb which aims at London Victoria station, but it lands away on the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.
* February 17–18 (overnight) – A single German ''Riesenflugzeug'' bomber attacks England, hitting St Pancras station in London, killing 21 people and injuring 32.
* February 18 – The ''Lafayette Escadrille'', the American volunteer squadron serving in the French Army, is transferred to the United States Army and redesignated the 103rd Aero Squadron.
* February 20 – The German high command issues a memorandum governing the employment of German ground-attack squadrons in the upcoming spring offensive on the Western Front, Operation Michael. It lays out the role of the squadrons as "flying ahead of and carrying the infantry along with them, keeping down the fire of the enemy's infantry and barrage batteries," adding that the appearance of ground-attack aircraft over the battlefield "affords visible proof to heavily engaged troops that the Higher Command is in close touch with the front, and is employing every means to support the fighting troops." It also directs the squadrons to "dislocate traffic and inflict appreciable loss on reinforcements hastening up to the battlefield."Blumberg, Arnold, "The First Ground-Pounders," ''Aviation History'', November 2014, pp. 42-43.

March

* March 6
**The Finnish Air Force is founded.
**The first successful flight of a powered unmanned heavier-than-air craft, the Curtiss-Sperry Flying Bomb, takes place. It is the precursor to modern unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
* March 10 – German ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke is shot down and killed over Lens, France, in combat with Sopwith Camels of the Royal Naval Air Service's No. 3 Naval Squadron. He has 13 victories at the time of his death.
* March 11 – The first regular international airmail service begins, with Hansa-Brandenburg C.I aircraft linking Vienna, Lviv, Proskurov, and Kiev.
* March 7–8 (overnight) – Five German ''Riesenflugzeug'' giant bombers raid England. One of them drops a bomb on Warrington Crescent near London's Paddington station; Lena Ford, who in 1914 had composed the popular wartime song '' Keep the Home Fires Burning'' and her 30-year-old son Walter are killed in their house by this bomb, becoming the first United States citizens to be killed in a German bombing raid.
* March 15
** South African 10-kill ace Lieutenant H. B. Redler of the Royal Flying Corps's No. 24 Squadron shoots down and kills the commanding officer of ''Jagdgeschwader'' II, Adolf Ritter von Tutschek, who is flying a green Fokker Dr.I. Tutschek's 27 victories would amount to a quarter of his parent ''Jagdstaffel'' 12's 104 victories.
**After an extensive conversion, re-enters service with the Royal Navy as the worlds first aircraft carrier with aircraft lifts (elevators).Sturtivant, Ray, ''British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917-1990'', Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, , p. 215.
* March 18 – The first Norwegian airline, Det Norske Luftfartrederi, is founded.
* March 21 – Germany launches Operation Michael, marking the beginning of the Spring Offensive. In the initial attack against the British front west of St Quentin, the German Army Air Service has 1,680 aircraft to the Royal Flying Corps' 579. Thirty-eight German close air support squadrons take part in the offensive; massed at key points of the attack, the German ground-attack aircraft operate in great numbers, both attacking the enemy front line and disrupting the flow of enemy supplies, replacements, and reinforcements behind the line.
* March 24 – Captain John Lightfoot Trollope of the Royal Flying Corps No. 43 Squadron shoots down six German aircraft in a day.
* March 25 – Ensign John McNamara makes the first United States Navy attack on a submarine.
* March 27
**Under attack by several German Fokker Dr.I triplanes over Albert, France, 18-year-old Canadian Second Lieutenant Alan Arnett McLeod, the pilot of an Armstrong Whitworth F.K.8 of the Royal Flying Corpss No. 2 Squadron, and his observer, Lieutenant Arthur Hammond, shoot down four of the German fighters before themselves being shot down in flames and crash-landing in no man's land. The seriously injured McLeod carries the badly wounded Hammond to the British lines, and, although McLeod is wounded again in the process, both men survive. McLeod will receive the Victoria Cross for his actions in a ceremony on September 4 at the age of 19, the youngest airman to be awarded the Victoria Cross in World War I.
**The Germans redesignate their ''Shutzstafffeln'' (escort squadrons) as '' Schlachtstaffeln'' (attack squadrons) in recognition of their close air support achievements during Operation Michael.
**The first aircraft manufactured by the United States Navy′s Naval Aircraft Factory, a Curtiss H-16, makes its first flight, only 228 days after ground was broken for the construction of the factory at League Island Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
* March 30 – Alan Jerrard VC, a British ace with seven victories, is shot down by Benno Fiala von Fernbrugg and taken captive.
* Late March – The ''Balkenkreuz'' replaces the Cross Pattée insignia as the national marking on German military aircraft.

April

* April 1
**The Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service combine to form the Royal Air Force, the worlds first independent air force, with Sir Hugh Trenchard as the first Chief of the Air Staff. The Women's Royal Air Force is formed at the same time.
**A ''Vizefeldwebel'' Weimar becomes the first person to use a parachute in combat when he successfully bails out of a German Albatros D.Va fighter.Guttman, John, "Heinecke Parachute: A Leap of Faith For German World War I Airmen," ''Military History'', May 2012, p. 23.
* April 4 – A two-seater aircraft takes off from a flying-off platform on a ship for the first time, when a Royal Air Force Sopwith 1½ Strutter launches from a platform mounted on a 12-inch (305-mm) gun turret of the Australian battlecruiser . By November 1918, ships of the British Grand Fleet will carry over 100 aircraft on flying-off platforms, by which time 22 light cruisers will have a flying-off platform and every battleship and battlecruiser will carry a two-seat aircraft on a platform mounted on a forward turret and a single-seat fighter on a platform mounted on an after turret.
* April 7 – The German submarine ''UB-53'' sees an airship accidentally catch fire and crash into the sea near the Strait of Otranto with the loss of all hands. It is the German Navy Zeppelin ''L 59'' which had been modified for long-range flights, while on the outbound leg of a flight from Yambol, Bulgaria, in an attempt to bomb the Royal Navy base at Malta.
* April 8 – A flight of Airco DH.4s makes the first independent raid of World War I by aircraft of the United States Armys Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, the forerunner of the United States Army Air Service.
* April 12
**While attacking the German Navy Zeppelin ''L 62'' while piloting an F.E.2b over England, Royal Air Force Lieutenant C. H. Noble-Campbell of No. 38 Squadron is wounded in the head by machine-gun fire from ''L 62'' but returns safely to base. This is the only occasion on which an attacking airman is wounded in combat with an airship.
**The final Zeppelin raid over England takes place.
**Captain H. W. Woollett of the Royal Air Force's No. 43 Squadron scores six victories in two sorties, including five Albatros D.Vs.
* April 21 – German ace Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron", is shot down and killed. By the time of his death, he had claimed 80 victories.
* April 23 – Lieutenant Paul Baer shoots down his fifth aircraft, becoming the first ace of the American Expeditionary Force.
* April 25 – Belgium's top-scoring ace, Willy Coppens, claims his first victory.
* April 27 – The United States Department of War creates a Division of Military Aeronautics responsible for the training of United States Army aviation personnel and units.
* April 29 – Flying a Nieuport 28 fighter, the top-scoring American ace of World War I, Eddie Rickenbacker

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